Ashley made hot chocolate in the apartment kitchen, properly with hot milk stirred in. Shepard watched her from the couch, in between staring at her hands. She guessed she shouldn't be surprised by it - Ash was as much the big sister as she was the Marine, like a coin you turned over in your hands.

There were facets of her that time had sculpted into different shapes and, like in so many other ways, Shepard was playing catch-up. She felt tired. Tired of running when everyone else was walking.

Ashley set the cup in front of her. "Might seem silly…but Ma used to do this for me, when stuff was fucked up. I thought maybe… look, I know we haven't been getting along but I still care about you. I mean, we were close, you know? I wanna move past all this shit."

Close. Shepard remembered Ash moving on top of her in her dim cabin, the terminal painting her back in blue, her hands pressing Shepard into the mattress as she gasped against her mouth. She shifted and took a gulp of the hot chocolate, "I'd like that. I…fucked up, on Horizon. It was a situation I didn't really know how to deal with and I understand, you know? Everything you said. I can't say that I wouldn't say the same if our places had been swapped."

Ash sat down beside her, "I thought…look, coming back from the dead? It sounded to me more like you faked your death and hadn't told me. And I…cared, you know? It fucking hurt, to think you'd done that, to go work for Cerberus. I'd grieved for two years, to think that'd you'd faked your death, that you didn't care enough to contact me…"

Shepard nodded, sharply, taking another sip, "Those things you said, I…I'd thought of them all. I still don't know if I'm really me." There was a lump in her throat but she forced herself on, to voice the words that'd stuck with her as she'd thought over Horizon again and again, "But I have to assume that I'm me because I broke ties with them."

Ashley reached over, her hand warm on her wrist, taking away the cup and setting it back on the coffee table, "You're you. I can see that now."

"I love you," Shepard said simply, the words slipping out. No more running. All the cards on the table. "I never stopped. I know it's been two years for you, Ash, but I've…I haven't had time to move on.'

"Shepard…" Ashley's voice was soft, her hand still on her arm. She tried to concentrate on something besides the warmth of her callused palm, full lips, eyes like whiskey.

"No one can hurt me like you can." Shepard admitted and Ash's fingers dug into her forearm, just a bit. "I must've read your email a dozen times, trying to work out what to say."

"You never were very good at emails." Ash said dryly. "I should've expected to get 'it'll be fine. Be safe.'"

Shepard rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly before Ashley's face went serious.

"We had something, years ago. Something important. When I saw you on Horizon, I know I said that I'd moved on but." Ashley shrugged, a little helplessly. "I'm still in love with you. Maybe that's part of why I was so angry."

Shepard tried to control her smile.

"I'd like for this to go somewhere." Ashley said at last.

"I can't imagine myself with anyone else." Shepard said honestly, folding a hand over Ash's.

She laughed. "Good, because I was starting to think I needed to buy a bat to beat off all the people throwing themselves at you."

Shepard shook her head affectionately. "Such a romantic."

"Don't you doubt it." She said, grinning and slid her hands to Shepard's collar. "Now c'mere."

"Yes ma'am." Shepard murmured and Ashley laughed in the moment before they kissed. She relaxed into it, the warm demand of Ashley's mouth, her hands in her hair, her weight in her lap when the Marine pressed her against the couch. There were still thing they needed to talk about, wounds that needed to be examined and bandaged with their mutual wish to move past their arguments and transgressions. But this was a good start.

A very good start, she thought, with Ashley nipping at her bottom lip and Ashley's hands on the buttons of her shirt, hot chocolate long forgotten.